Dry forests in the Southern Interior of British Columbia: Historic disturbances and implications for restoration and management

We critically examine the hypothesis that dry forests in southern British Columbia evolved in the context of a low-severity fire-dominated disturbance regime, that fire suppression has led to ecological conditions which are radically different from the past, and that “restoration” initiatives are required to re-establish former ecological conditions. Four sources of information were used to infer historic disturbance regimes and forest condition and to quantify the nature of disturbance since the early 1900s: (1) patterns of annual and seasonal weather and lightning strikes, (2) topographic variability, (3) records of wildfire, insect attack, and timber harvesting practices, and (4) early systematic forest surveys.